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Recommended Items
Runes:
Spells:
Flash
Teleport
Items
Ability Order
Rebirth (PASSIVE)
Anivia Passive Ability
Threats & Synergies
Azir
A tough matchup. A good azir won't get in range of any of your abilities while punishing you for getting close to CS. A bad Azir, however, will underestimate you and allow you to get kills. (You can see an example of one in my videos)
[1] Introduction
Anivia's great because she can do AoE damage, solo burst damage, create terrain, and of course she has that egg passive that everyone forgets about. The passive is actually what got me playing Anivia initially.
After learning the game in early 2016, I was able to climb from Bronze IV to Diamond in 5 months with Anivia. With me being super untalented at video games, my conclusion is that Anivia is busted for climbing and learning more about the game. If you're a higher rank than me and are new to Anivia, I still believe you can take a lot from this guide using my fancy tips and tricks. And if you're a lower rank than me, this champ could get you outta elo hell easily. Mid lane is a great way to make a strong impact on the game's outcome, by solo carrying, supporting a fed team, roaming, etc. It's a great test of individual skill because often out-playing your opponent is pivotal. Or just out-farming.
Still, Anivia is not an easy champion to master, especially in higher elo where players know how to play around her kit. In low elo, however, you'll be astounded how many players forget your egg passive and dive you under turret, or stay in stun range during laning phase. It'll be easy to win lane every game and come out on top.
When I was in bronze/silver/gold I did take ignite a majority of the time and got first blood & solo kills often. If you think you can get fed off your lane this way, it's not a bad option at all as a lot of people disrespect Anivia's base damage.
I'm going to put this first because it's an underrated thing to do. In lane, auto-harass your enemy, especially if they're melee. Anivia has one of the highest auto attack ranges in the game (600 range), so abuse it. You do a surprising amount of damage if you take every opportunity to safely autoattack.
Note: Watch out for minion aggro. If the minions start attacking you, you'll push the wave and be vulnerable to ganks.
Also be careful that you're not missing farm to harass, or if the enemy has any counter-harass. At the same time, if the enemy uses up their combo, land a Q-E if possible as they can't fight back (situational).
With melee assassins, Anivia usually wins pre-6 by autoattacking and Q-E. Examples of this include Akali, Talon, Ekko, Fizz. Well, Fizz can be tough now that his W does so much damage.
Pre-6 Wave Control with Q
Sometimes with Anivia you will want to counter-push early as much as possible to prevent yourself from being pushed in. However, in many circumstances you just have to accept your fate and work on your under-turret csing. During laning phase I usually set up the wave pre-6 such that the creeps meet slightly before my tower (you can force this to happen by not killing enemy caster minions and letting them attack you before the next wave comes). Note that the minions can do a lot of damage in early levels so don't do this if in doubt.
Try not to freeze at your turret against roaming champs like Taliyah, Twisted Fate, or Aurelion Sol, as they will take advantage of that the instant they hit level six. In my opinion Anivia is weak against these champs as it's hard to match roams. Often they'll push you into tower giving you no choice.
Also, using your Q on minions is sometimes a safe way to farm from afar if being zoned, but can leave you vulnerable - this leads me to my next point.
Saving the Q
The meta playstyle as Anivia is to mostly farm, then fish for stuns while the enemy laner tries to CS, E if possible, then either back off or all-in (using Q to farm and do damage is efficient). Once you land your combo, don't linger unless you're going for the kill pre-6 - usually the enemy will take advantage of the fact that your stun is down.
You really are vulnerable when your Q is on cooldown, and an assassin like Fizz, Zed, or a Leblanc could easily all-in you, so for these matchups take care when using your Q. Likewise, become familiar with your enemy's cooldowns and trade when they're at their weakest (leblanc mimic, zed W/R, fizz W/E/R, etc.). Knowing when to fight and when to back off is important. When in doubt, play passively.
Landing the Q
A good tactic I often use for landing stuns is to cancel your backswing or auto animation with a Q. Often this is unexpected and can catch the opponent off guard.
Otherwise, Anivia's laning phase is pretty standard: dodge abilities, abuse cooldowns, auto-harass, and farm.
Roaming
Before boots and pre-6, kind of hard to do, unless your enemy laner died or has weak wave clear. But it is very possible especially with teleport. I have won a lot of games just with early teleports into bot lane for a double or triple kill, but have also lost a lot of games with poor teleports as well. Take care as the early game can be a fragile stage of the game.
Pre-6 roaming is a weak point of Anivia (miss a stun and you're useless), and preventing others from roaming is difficult too. If the enemy roams, you'll want to help out if you believe you can change the flow of a fight, but often the right choice is to just farm and push the wave to the turret, denying the enemy gold and experience.
This vid has a cheesy montage at the beginning I added in, you can skip to 1:00 if you just want to see the gameplay.
Here is a (perhaps outdated) example of a Diamond IV ranked game I played vs a Fizz in Season 6. Could be useful to put here as an example for how I have dealt with Fizz in the past. I've got some more videos on the way, stay tuned!
R-W-E-Q-E All-in / Damage Combo
This is a combo which leaves you vulnerable but can deal serious damage. I like to use R to get the slow & start ticking, W to trap them inside, E for the crit, then Q after they're slowed. By the time you hit Q, E will be off cooldown for some more crazy damage.
DO NOT FORGET to use your auto-attacks whenever not using an ability or in between abilities.
Wall can be used to trap people inside your ultimate, or to push them into a stun. If they have flash, it might be a good idea to save your stun in case they flash out of your ultimate. This combo does not work all the time, especially against those with dashes and escapes (e.g., lb, zed).
Positioning is also key in a 1v1 situation. For example, if you place your ultimate down and send out a Q, if someone has flash up they can simply flash over your stun and ultimate, which would leave you defenseless until your cooldowns reset. To counter this, staying close to your ultimate is not a bad idea - so if someone flashes onto you, you can then walk over it forcing the enemy to follow you over your Glacial Storm (assuming they're not long ranged and it's a safe path for you to go).
Personally I use quick-cast on all my skills and trinkets. I find it easier to cast quicker combos such as a fast Q-E, which is really useful against champs like Gangplank who will try to cleanse the Q and prevent E crit with his W.
If you're a beginner to Anivia, you might not want to use quick cast since you aren't used to the ranges of each ability (bad walls can lose games - I've made enough bad walls to know the range =P). I do put normal cast with shift if I want to check range. So basically reversing the defaults. This has worked great for me so let me know what you think.
It is key to know that as Anivia you are pretty defenseless when your ultimate and stun are off cooldown, so repositioning your ultimate and wasting stun frequently should be avoided!
Teamfights
During teamfights, you want to position yourself and your team such that enemies must walk through or stay inside your ultimate, using your wall to help out. Stunning multiple targets inside your ultimate is ideal.
Here's an example of a recent game where an amumu ult was rendered redundant due to Anivia's ultimate denying the enemy from following up in a game-winning teamfight.
I move towards the top-right side of my ultimate to ensure my safety as the only safe path the enemy could walk through is under my ultimate. Notice also at the end of the clip I use my wall to push Soraka into a stun which otherwise would not have hit.
Here's an interesting teamfight that shows the power of leaving Anivia's ultimate in position. After placing it on Cass, I keep it there to prevent the enemy from reaching Lucian and me. I walk through the bottom side of the ultimate, baiting the enemy (now 2v2 since Trist left and Cass died) to walk through the ultimate to get to me instead of advancing towards Lucian. Unfortunately Thresh's flay ruined my plans a little bit, but we still manage to pick up enough kills leaving the support who was ultimately unable to defend their nexus (I tped in). No clue why Tristana decided to rocket jump out of their 4v2, oh well.
Wall Mechanics
When timed correctly, Anivia's wall can be used to render certain abilities useless such as Thresh's lantern, Zac's jump, Trist's rocket jump, Lee Sin safeguard, etc. This is a difficult thing to accomplish, and I have only ever been able to pull this off through prediction (and you may need good ping for this to work).
In this example, I'm able to cancel Lee Sin's ward jump forcing him to flash, right onto my Q.
Wall into Turret
In some cases if someone is chasing you under turret without flash, you can use wall to push them into turret aggro, preventing them from escaping at least two turret shots.
More
If you're interested in more of these videos, check out my Plays.TV.
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